Location: The Shattered Icefields — Beneath the Veil
POV: Caelis Thorne
It wasn't just a beast.
Caelis could feel that now—every pulse of the earth beneath his boots carried a name too old to pronounce, a presence too vast to cage. The ice groaned as if it remembered a god's weight, and through it, something breathed.
The Weaver had said it was older than Thamaris.
She hadn't lied.
---
Echoes of the Deep
He descended through a frozen cavern opened by the creature's stirrings. The tunnel writhed with frozen veins, pulsating softly with dim violet light. The deeper he went, the less he felt like a man and more like a trespasser in a forgotten dream.
Etched along the walls were pictographs—images of winged beings locked in endless battle, their blood birthing mountains, oceans, even time itself.
Then he saw it:
A fresco of a single beast, bound beneath ice by seven flaming chains.
Only six remained.
---
The Chain Breaker
A voice slithered into his mind.
> "Caelis Thorne. King of ash. Blood of the doomed. Come closer."
He stepped forward, past the final bend in the tunnel—and froze.
There it lay.
An eye the size of a cathedral. Closed, but twitching. Its skin was a tapestry of runes and scars, each one glowing faintly. Horns curled back across a skeletal face. Wings like torn shadows were frozen mid-thrash beneath the ice.
Not dead.
Dormant.
> "They feared me… as you fear yourself," the voice hissed. "But we are not enemies. We are the same."
"No," Caelis said aloud. "I fight monsters. I kill them."
The ice cracked beneath his feet.
> "And what are you, Caelis? You who drank the god's blood and survived? You who walked out of death as fire?"
---
The Seventh Flame
On a pedestal of crystal stood the final chain—still burning, barely. It pulsed like a heartbeat made of dying stars.
He knew what it was before he touched it.
The last lock.
The creature stirred in its prison. Eyes opened—three of them—each reflecting a different future: one where the world burned, one where it knelt, and one where it was free.
> "Break me… or bind me forever."
---
Final Scene — The Blood Decision
Caelis gripped his sword, staring at the flame chain.
One strike could set the beast loose, a weapon against Thamaris's legacy. But another voice echoed in his head—Seris's, soft and clear:
> "Not all fire is meant to be wielded."
He raised the blade.
And the chapter ends as the sword begins to fall.